Signed by over three hundred prominent Chinese citizens, China's Charter 08
calls for an end to some of its essential features of China current
political system, including one-party rule, and their replacement with
a system based on human rights, equality, democracy and the rule of
law. From the document:
Authoritarianism is
in general decline throughout the world; in China, too, the era of
emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving
everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path
that leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the
authoritarian notion of reliance on an "enlightened overlord" or an
"honest official" and to turn instead toward a system of liberties,
democracy, and the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness
of modern citizens who see rights as fundamental and participation as a
duty.
